Welcome

I've been playing on and off for a decade after being introduced by a friend.

I played regularly for a few years during the poker boom and had a decent record at the micros, particularly Rush and Zoom No Limit Hold'em games (here's one of my graphs).

Around 2012 I began a new career which involved immersing myself completely in study in my spare time, so I had little to no time for poker. However recently this burden has eased and so I have been gradually dipping back in.

I'm an amateur player who still hopes to some day beat the rake.

Thursday, 24 June 2010

Two hands that didn't go my way

Didn't play this hand particularly well I don't think:

Villain was playing a very tight range so putting him on all the pocket pairs, there are no weaker hands that call my check raise. At the time, I decided that I'd check raise with the intention of 3-barrelling all - in should he call. I was going to represent a set and try and fold out {TT-AA} as well as any overcard 'air' in his range. I'd not normally do something like this with a hand like 88 but the extra equity (8 outs to straight) gave me 38(ish)% to actually be ahead by the river versus overpairs. I felt this extra equity may have made the play alright. I'm not sure. However when we hit our straight it's necessary to bet for value. After the second call I was pretty convinced that he had some sort of overpair which is why I shipped on the river. I think this value bet may have been too thin. I'm going to put this hand through pokerazor at some point and find out. I feel that a check call may have been better on the flop but I'll let you know. Second hand just standard but a shame my straight didn't hold up.